Quicksilver Girl
by They-Want-Me-To-Tap-Dance
Summary: "Two years ago, if anyone asked Sally to run an errand for Sherlock Holmes, she would have said absolutely bloody not. She was NOT his private bloody courier." The intervening years make victims of everyone. Rated M for safety. Mentions of injuries and murder.
Quicksilver Girl (Story) © Anaubrey Shannon
Quicksilver Girl (Song) © Steve Miller Band

I don't own BBC Sherlock or the song title that partly inspired this work of fan fiction.

Beta-read by the incomparable englishtutor. Be sure to check out ET's extensive and lovingly detailed Sherlock stories/universe.

This story lies somewhere between S3x01 and S3x02, likely JUST after everything seems to have gone back to normal. Reader's choice whether this occurred before or after the terrorist plot to destroy Parliament in S3x01.

Enjoy!

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"Donovan, would you deliver this file to Sherlock? I'm expected on scene in fifteen," said Lestrade, looking harassed as he passed the folder hopefully to Sally.

Two years ago, if anyone asked Sally to run an errand for Sherlock Holmes, she would have said absolutely bloody not. She was NOT his private bloody courier.

But as of today, the look in her boss's eyes resulted in a resigned sigh and a reluctant nod of her head. Case file in hand, she left the Yard five minutes later and headed to her car. She was giving up her tea break for this task, much to her further chagrin. She hoped her passiveness in the matter wasn't the start of her putting on a hair shirt like Anderson had.

Since the detective had risen from the dead, this would be her third time making a delivery to 221B. It was her good fortune the previous two trips that no one was around besides Mrs. Hudson to answer the door. Pleasantries aside, Sally had simply left the file on an available surface in the flat and left swiftly. Would she be graced with the same good fortune again?

Pulling up to the kerb and walking up to the door, she elected to tap with the knocker in favor of ringing the buzzer. She expected Mrs. Hudson to answer and was not disappointed. She liked the kindly landlady well enough, but had to put on a smile and gently refuse her offers for tea and feeding up.

Ascending the familiar stairs, she silently prayed no one was home. Opening the door without knocking, she knew her luck had run out.

Not only was Sherlock Holmes present in the flat, he was completely naked aside from a towel wrapped around his waist. He must have just got out of the shower (or bath?), looking considerably less posh than she was used to seeing him, with his hair nearly sopping wet and plastered to his face and in his eyes. Having hair in the way didn't quite mask the fleeting shock on his face.

Brushing some of the sodden locks from his eyes and clearing his throat, Sherlock began with:

"Another peace offering from Lestrade? He's never been so accommodating in regards to case files as he is now." There was a dash of sarcasm in his tone, but nowhere close to what he was capable of.

She observed that he was much skinnier than she had ever seen him and so pallid as to be nearly translucent, which served to make the obvious shadows underneath his eyes stand out starkly against his skin. At least skeletal and cadaverous were not adjectives she would use to describe him just yet. His abdomen was littered with bruises and cuts that looked several weeks old, one of the worst bruises giving the impression of a large, blunt object having caused the impact. It was still purple in the middle and faded to green and yellow on the edges. She couldn't help but suck in a breath at the sight….

Moving to take the file out her hands to briefly peruse the contents, Sherlock snapped her out of her reverie.

"I can solve this case in 10 minutes. Have a seat while I get dressed. The kettle's just boiled."

Stunned by his amenability, Sally went over to the couch without question. Sherlock hesitated for a moment before turning around and striding to his bedroom.

Sally gasped quietly this time at the masses of red lashes, pink welts, additional bruises, and probable scars on Sherlock's back and shoulders. Some of them looked like they hadn't healed over properly. He didn't give her a chance to start her line of inquiry, hearing the door click shut before she could say a word.

She knew that meeting him again would cause the guilt she harbored for her actions two years ago to boil to the surface, but seeing evidence of what Sherlock might have gone through made her feel slightly ill. She had tried for so long to suppress the shame she felt, officially beginning after his "posthumous" vindication, but now it was coming up without reserve like sudden, blistering rash.

Caught up by her train of thought once again, Sally noticed neither Sherlock's re-entry nor his ministrations in the kitchen until he was proffering a cup of tea in front of her expectantly. He was dressed in his standard attire, excepting the suit jacket, and his shirt sleeves were rolled up.  
Taking the cup, she tried to summon a neutral facial expression as she made eye contact with him. As always, his gaze was piercingly analytical, but he didn't hold it for long as he sat on the right end of the couch, grimacing slightly. He had his own cup of tea in hand and was already tucked into reading the file.

After a several minutes of flicking through photographs and statements, she heard him say mostly to himself:

"Hm. Sloppy."

"Excuse me?"

"This is a homicide shoddily staged to look like a suicide, very likely by the victim's boyfriend, as there's evidence that more than one person inhabited the space. The victim is naked in her bathtub, a syringe filled with quicksilver jabbed into her arm. The only foresight the killer had was to strip her of her clothing and cut her nails brutally short to reduce the risk of DNA being left on her body. The kitchen is also antiseptically clean.

"That's where the foresight ends and the mistakes become clear. It takes around 2 weeks to die from a liquid mercury injection, so her killer would have kept her locked up in their flat for the duration as her organs failed and she slowly went insane. If she had attempted suicide with this method, there might have been a chance that she would venture outside of the flat and bring attention to herself. The staging is immediately suspect because she was already deceased from a full syringe of liquid mercury injected into her veins, yet the syringe stuck in her arm in the photo is filled to half capacity instead of being empty.  
There is also a powder residue on her body and in her hair that suggests the boyfriend was wearing gloves with cornstarch in them. Instead of taking the box of gloves with him after the victim's death, he's hidden them in the flat somewhere like an idiot. You can follow the trail of cornstarch powder to the bookcase, where you will find all the fingerprints you need as well as the gloves to bring him in on suspicion. He'll certainly crack easily in custody if he managed to clean the area where he prepared the quicksilver but not bother with the rest of the flat, as he was anxious to flee the murder scene. He'll have a rucksack with him containing the liquid mercury and respirator mask for further self incrimination."

Sherlock delivered his deductions in a mostly neutral tone instead of with indecent glee. He hadn't called Sally an idiot even once or tried to have a go at her at all so far. The changes she noted in him were staggering. Just being as agreeable as he had been since she arrived threw her for a loop. She didn't bother to school her expressions anymore.

One or two minutes of silence swelled between them until, rising from his seat suddenly, Sherlock exclaimed:

"Oh, do please spare me from having to listen to the sound of your thinking! Your thoughts are obnoxiously loud."

"What happened to you? Your back is slashed to ribbons, yet you've been completely blasé about it." Sally blurted out as Sherlock crossed to the kitchen to pour another cup of tea for himself.

"My time away from London is mostly privileged information, but it certainly wasn't the holiday many think I embarked on. I was interrogated rather harshly." He replied bitterly.

" 'Harshly interrogated' enormously understates the situation." She snorted.

At that, Sherlock spun around to face Sally and said:

"Well, I thought I'd appeal to your already fragile conscience by sugarcoating the former remark, but if you want it baldly stated, I was beaten within an inch of my life on several occasions."

Sally could see that he wasn't angry or upset. Just cynical and tired.

"Does John know about your injuries?"

"I've kept him on a need to know basis regarding my hiatus, and I don't classify this as such."

She huffed at that. A certain emotional distance between the two men was to be expected, she supposed.

There was a pressing question that had been lodged in her chest that she finally decided to ask out loud:

"How much of this was my fault?"

"Surprisingly little."

Sally hadn't expected that, but Sherlock was full of surprises today. He started pacing slightly as he talked.

"Even if you and Anderson cast the first stones by bringing your suspicions to Lestrade and the Chief Superintendent, it was only one sliver of a very elaborate plan to discredit me. The evidence on the Bruhl case was planted for you as much as it was for me. Even then your influence only reached within the police department, whereas there were threads in the press and the public to be tugged. Your stones did not shatter as many windows as you thought.

"If you hadn't gone to your superiors with your suspicions, there were plenty of people working at the Yard whom I've made feel inadequate over the years who would have gladly taken the opportunity to knock me down. Even if no one at the Yard had a word to say against me, Moriarty would have found a different avenue. If it hadn't been you, he would have manipulated some other unfortunate sod. I could almost thank you for making my media crucifixion go quickly and smoothly."

Sally snorted incredulously. She really must be in an alternative universe if Sherlock Holmes was _thanking_ her. She wouldn't deny that her conscience was slightly assuaged, though.

Turning to look at him, she saw that Sherlock had the case file in his hands and was already making his way down the stairs.

"Oi, wait up!"

Sherlock only paused when he was on the pavement outside.

"Well, hand over the file. You can't be gallivanting around London with private information."

"I intended to deliver it to Lestrade personally."

"Then what was I waiting around for you for?" Sally replied hotly.

"You skipped your afternoon tea to make this delivery." Sherlock stated simply.

He'd left her slightly bemused by his matter-of-fact tone. Clearing her throat slightly, she said:

"Would you like a ride over?"

"No need to make this more awkward for yourself than necessary. I'd prefer to walk."

He said this just as he was turning to start his journey. Sally noticed that he had taken neither his suit jacket nor his iconic coat to wear. It was unlikely that he'd forgotten either item, so she surmised that he desired a modicum of anonymity by walking off in his shirtsleeves. Leave it to him for his best disguise to be no disguise at all.

Musing over their interaction as Sally got into her car, she wondered which of them had felt more naked today.

* * *

Fin

Thanks for reading and reviews are welcome!


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